Patent Granted in Australia

22 July 2015

Alexander Mining plc

('Alexander' or the 'Company')

Patent Granted in Australia for a Method for Recovering Cobalt from Cobalt-Containing Ores

Alexander is pleased to report that it has received notification that its MetaLeach Limited ("MetaLeach") subsidiary has been granted a patent for a Method for Recovering Cobalt from Cobalt-Containing Ores in Australia, patent number 2013202009. This patent forms part of MetaLeach's family of core AmmLeach® technologies and has a standard term of twenty years from the effective date of 26 March 2013 (being the date of original filing).

Martin Rosser, Chief Executive Officer, said: "Cobalt is a core target metal for the commercialisation of our intellectual property. This Australian patent is complementary to the AmmLeach® and HyperLeach® suites of patents. The primary target is the tailings from the processing of copper-cobalt ores from which the copper has been extracted. Such tailings are common in both Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) due to the difficulties of extracting cobalt in addition to copper when using acid-based processes. A number of operating plants in these countries are only able to extract copper, thereby presenting potential synergies for our technology with existing producers.

The DRC hosts around half of the world's cobalt resources and the Government is actively encouraging the in country production of more cobalt metal, or high value added interim product as currently nearly all cobalt product is exported in a lower value concentrate form."

In practice, the patented process would comprise a simple oxidised cobalt-containing ore pre-treatment step, followed by washing the ore to recover the valuable metal product. The process would operate at ambient pressure and temperature and requires significantly less capital and has much lower operating costs than conventional treatment processes being used today. In addition, overall losses are minimised, thereby improving recoveries.

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